The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel by Patry Francis Page A

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    “In all these years, I never knew what it meant. Do you?”
    Hallie had immediately recognized the rhyming song her great-aunt used to sing to her. Though most people in town knew only a handful of phrases in Portuguese—usually prayers or curses—a few, like Maria, whose family had immigrated to New Bedford when she was five, or Aunt Del, still retained their native tongue. Though not fluent, Hallie had been taught by her father, who had taken the opportunity to study the language in college.
    “It’s about a woman trying to chase a stubborn cat away,” she said. “All the kids learn it in Portugal, according to Aunt Del. Kind of like ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ for us.”
    Gus looked sadly over the horizon. “So that’s what I was singing while it happened. A nursery rhyme about a cat.”
    “You were a little boy doing what your mother asked you to do . . .” Hallie said, though she already knew that no words, no spell could take away his guilt.
    “But instead of becoming a Jedi knight, I lost my mother—and my father, too. I counted and sang through all the yelling and scuffling and doors slamming. When I finally stopped, the house was quiet, and my father’s truck was gone. Usually, when he left, I went and crawled in bed with my mother. But this time she wasn’t there. At first, I thought she’d gone out, too, even though she never left me alone. I was scared, but I refused to cry. If my father came back and caught me crying, it would start all over again. So I curled up in the bed. On her pillow, I could still smell the Ponds cold cream she always put on before bed. By then, I was so tired from trying to keep my vow, I almost fell asleep.”
    He paused, as if trying to stop time before he added five grim words. “And then I saw her.”
    Hallie closed her eyes and tried not to imagine the terrible hours between that moment on the bed and the time when Nick found a nearly catatonic Gus hiding in the closet. Her first instinct was to hold him the way Nick had that day after he removed the door and lifted him from the small space.
    But Gus was no child anymore. He stared straight ahead for a long time, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips, his face a mask.
    Abruptly, he leaped to his feet and extended his hand to her. “Let’s get out of here,” he said abruptly. “There’s nothing in this place but old bones and stories no one wants to remember.”
    Hallie wasn’t sure if it was the cigarette and the alcohol or the shimmering heat—or just everything she’d heard and tasted and felt that afternoon—but she was wobbly.
    “You know something?” Gus said. “I’ve never talked about that day to anyone, and here I am, spilling my guts like I’ve known you all my life.”
    Hallie wanted to tell him that they had known each other all their lives. Had he really forgotten? And what’s more, she wanted to hear it. But instead she blamed the Jack Daniels.
    Gus stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “That’s not the reason,” he said. “It’s just that there’s never been anyone close enough to tell. Not till today.”

Chapter 9
    T hat night when she went to bed Hallie felt like the dimensions of her room had changed; it was far smaller than she’d imagined it. On the other hand, the moon outside her window was huge, and so bright it seemed to pulsate. Even the air she breathed felt like it had been charged with a secret intoxicant.
    By morning, the ordinary road she had walked every day of her life was new, too. It was the last place she’d seen him . If she looked hard enough, she could almost see him disappearing down the road, his spine arrow straight in spite of the Jack Daniels, and what had happened that day. If she listened hard enough, she would hear the gravelly music of his voice. I’ll see you, okay? Now as she looked out the window toward the spot where he had vanished, she had only one question: When?
    All day, the street remained a desert, even as it hummed with